Novice To Ninja: System Design (High Level Design)

Master system design from basics to advanced distributed architecture. Learn scalability, databases, microservices, APIs, and real-world system design case studies. Build strong foundations to design large-scale systems and succeed in high-level design interviews. This course provides a structured journey from foundational system design concepts to advanced real-world architecture used in large-scale distributed systems. It begins with essential building blocks such as internet protocols, DNS, CDN, caching, proxies, load balancing, scalability, and availability. These concepts help learners understand how modern applications handle massive traffic, ensure reliability, and deliver high performance under varying workloads. The course then moves into core database and data management principles, including CAP theorem, PACELC, SQL and NoSQL databases, replication, indexing, normalization, and sharding. Learners gain deep insights into how data is stored, distributed, and optimized across systems while balancing consistency, availability, and partition tolerance in real-world scenarios. In the advanced section, the course explores modern system architecture patterns such as monoliths, microservices, message brokers, APIs, REST, GraphQL, gRPC, service discovery, service mesh, API gateways, authentication, encryption, and rate limiting. Finally, learners apply all concepts through practical system design case studies including URL shortener, WhatsApp, Twitter/X, Netflix, and Uber, preparing them for real-world engineering challenges and high-level system design interviews. Ideal for software engineers, backend developers, and system design interview candidates. Basic knowledge of programming and web technologies is recommended. This course follows a structured progression from fundamentals to advanced system design concepts. Each topic builds on real-world engineering principles and scalability challenges. Learners reinforce understanding through practical system design case studies. This course is based on Novice To Ninja: System Design (High Level Design), by Srinidhi R V. Copyright © 2025 Srinidhi RV All rights reserved. No part of this course may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Packt is one of the world's most prolific publishers of cutting-edge technical content. For over two decades we've made it our mission to curate and publish the knowledge of only the very best technical experts. We focus on real-world courses that help our customers get the job done, with coverage that extends across a wide range of established and cutting-edge technical topics. If you're an individual or an organisation that embraces learning by doing, Packt is the perfect fit for you.